Ahern rebuffs aid agencies over decentralisation plea

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern last night delivered a stinging rebuke to aid agencies and opposition parties who want him to reverse plans to decentralise the Government’s foreign aid section.

Under the Government’s decentralisation programme, Development Co-operation Ireland (DCI) is scheduled to be relocated to Limerick at the beginning of 2007.

However, with just 13 of the agency’s 123 staff in favour of the move, 35 aid agencies yesterday wrote to Mr Ahern asking him to reverse the decision.

Their concerns, though, were given short shrift by the minister, who promised to follow through on the plan regardless.

“It seems to be quite illogical, the notion that aid agencies can work in Liberia or Lesotho but not Limerick,” he said.

Mr Ahern pointed to the 1991 decentralisation of the development committee of the OECD from London to Dhaka in Bangladesh.

“There was uproar at moving people half way across the world but that move has worked in an era which had none of the air transport or communications links we currently enjoy.

“However, apparently it is not possible for a development agency to function in the computer age of 2007 by moving 100 miles down the road to Limerick.”

But in its letter to Mr Ahern, Dochas - the Irish Association of Non-Governmental Organisations - warned that the move posed “a significant threat to the hitherto high quality of the Irish aid programme”.

“This proposal will lead to a loss of expertise and will slow down much-needed aid,” said Dochas director Hans Zomer.

That view has been expressed by all opposition parties, unions and academics. And the DCI advisory board has warned of the implications.